Chrysalis
"Each hour, a myriad of trillions of little live things - microbes, bacteria, the peasants of nature - are born and die, not counting for much except the bulk of their numbers and the accumulation of their tiny lives. They do not perceive deeply, nor do they suffer. A hundred trillion, dying, would not begin to have the same importance as a single human death. Within the ranks of magnitude of all creatures, small as microbes or great as humans, there is an equality of 'élan,' just as the branches of a tall tree, gathered together, equal the bulk of all the limbs below, and all the limbs equal the bulk of the trunk. We believe this as firmly as the kings of France believed in their hierarchy. Which of our generations will come to disagree?" Once a prominent, wealthy, and successful biologist working with Nueva Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Malika Aarya now lives a reclusive and sedentary existence. Hounded by kidnappers and lawyers both, she does her best to keep a hand on the reins of her life, even as the rough course of life in a world of supers tries to wrench them from her, and even as her body continues to change in ways she cannot fully understand. Backstory Dr. Malika Aarya is the eldest daughter of a family of East Coast Pakistani immigrants. Her father, Aban Aarya, is a professor of religious and cultural studies at a large university. During her time attending college in California, Malika drifted from her Muslim family upbringing into agnosticism and eventual firmly-settled atheism. However, relatively liberal though her family is, she still pays respectful lip service to their religion when visiting. Her research with Nueva Pharmaceuticals, her eventual employer, was lucrative and engaging, but a desire to make a genuine name for herself led Malika to begin work on a secretive side project in the company labs, working on developing a new biocomputing system based on lymphocytes extracted from her own blood. The results were beyond anything she, or any reasonable person, could have expected. Within a few weeks of the first experiments, the cells began to express recombinant algorithms spontaneously. Their greatly accelerated lifespans and artificial RNA structures effectively combined to create an effect of drastically accelerated evolution. The project had taken a turn she could not have foreseen, and whose outcome was unguessable. Unfortunately, the company grew wise to her secret experiments. Malika was discharged, and ordered to destroy her samples. With no means of safely absconding with them, she was left with only two options: To destroy the scientific discovery of a lifetime, or to find another way. Fully cognizant of the insanity of her actions, Malika injected the cells into herself and departed, smuggling them out in her own bloodstream. Powers and Abilities The rapid evolution of the altered lymphocytes led them to an emergent eusociality that edges towards a true "hive mind" or even collective sapience. Though the cells are not individually "intelligent", the behaviors that emerge from their collective behavior are every bit as civilized and cognizant as any human being. The cells can communicate with Malika by interfacing directly with her brain. However, their wildly divergent perspectives on the world - individual versus collective, macroscopic organism versus microscopic - makes more than abstract conversation difficult. The most obvious benefits to Malika are physical. These intelligent cells police her body effectively, repairing and tending it from within and rendering her incredibly resistant to disease, poison and injury. Even should she undergo brain death, the cells can preserve "memory proteins" and re-activate them once they have sufficient biological materials to reconstruct her vital organs. Most dramatically, however, they can, with alarming alacrity, reconstruct her physical body, allowing Malika a potent form of shapeshifting. Though too imprecise to allow her to impersonate others or change species, she can grow new body parts this way. All these changes are extremely stressful to her body and require her to consume huge amounts of food and vitamins to provide the necessary "raw materials". Lastly, the cells can survive in other organisms, and even communicate with the "collective" this way via some not-yet-understood principle of quantum entanglement present at their microscopic scale. This allows her to spy through the senses of any organism playing host to her cells within a several mile radius, and may eventually even allow her to read their minds. However, immune systems besides hers tend to react hostilely to these cells, which will voluntarily submit to these reactions to avoid imperiling their host's health. Thus, these measures are temporary. She can also temporarily pass her own biological matter to others, along with a "work crew" of cells to use these materials to heal others' bodies. Drawbacks and Complications Drawbacks * Power Loss: Ethical compunction. Malika's "powers" are not fully her own, but are instead favors done for her by intelligent, even ethical creatures. Selfish, cruel, or pointless demands of her augmented lymphocytes can be expected to be ignored. Though for at least their own survival they will always protect Malika, their aid in spying and shapeshifting can be denied if they consider it unnecessary or immoral. * Weakness: Blood thinners kill off some of Malika's augmented lymphocytes, and the chemical "junk" released on their deaths can put her into temporary toxic shock. Save DC bonuses on effects incorporating blood thinners are doubled. Complications # Nueva Pharmaceuticals: Malika has yet to learn how, but the company has become aware of just what she has done, and become. They want her back, but not as an employee. They have focused on making her life difficult, trying to pursue her via legal channels with (recently failed) charges of corporate espionage, and illegal channels with hired kidnappers. Should she fall into their hands, there is no reason to expect any clemency from whatever sinister puppeteers pull the strings behind Nueva. # The Eternal Om Nom Nom: Though abnormally healthy under most circumstances, Malika must eat copiously to maintain the increased metabolic demands placed on her body. She suffers badly if she is forced to go with too little food and starves with abnormal rapidity. In nutritional emergencies, functions such as her regeneration and shapeshifting will "shut down" to free up resources. Forcing them to function is possible but endangers her life. # The Great Unknown: Exactly what spurred the change in the lymphocytes is unknown to Malika and, as far as they're willing to share at least, to them. It is impossible to predict what their shared future holds. As they continue to evolve, and her body continues to change with them, these strange cells may herald bizarre changes. So far, they have mostly been for the better, as she has gained more fine control over her shapeshifting. There is, however, no guarantee what lies ahead will be pleasant. There is also that puzzling and ominous matter of the peculiar "signature" they appear to bear, detectable to some. # Grotesque: Malika's regeneration, shapeshifting, and healing abilities are all disturbing and unpleasant to behold. Human biology is beautiful, in its own way, but as with child birth, the miracle of life can often be absolutely revolting. Malika cannot use her abilities indiscriminately without risking frightening, disgusting, or alienating those not accustomed to her. Trivia *Malika's origin story is based on the short story (and later novel) Blood Music by Greg Bear. The divergence occurs in terms of the effects her experiments had on her, compared to those which occured to the character of Virgil Ulam in the story (and later to most of the world therein). *It has yet to feature prominently in the storyline, but it is implied Malika is something of a cougar. "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me." Category:PC Category:Supers Category:McMurray Detective Agency